Portrait of Ruben's daughter Clara Serena

In 1985 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York held an exhibition titled Lichtenstein: The Princely Collections. Refering to the exhibit, and the accompanying book by John Philip O’Neil, the Metropolitan editor’s state, “For successive generations the Princes of Liechtenstein have been devoted collectors of art. The result of this tradition is a collection of masterpieces that in its depth and breadth mirrors more than four hundred years of European history and ranks among the world's greatest private collections.” The show featured many works of art. One of the galleries showcased the grand paintings of Peter Paul Rubens, the Decius Mus Cycle. I remember walking in the room and being captivated by the large paintings—the compositional activity.

The MET editor’s state, “Of the many memorable masterpieces that make up the Princely Collections perhaps the most notable is the great cycle of eight canvases by Peter Paul Rubens—the history of Decius Mus, the Roman consul—the only complete ensemble of this type now in private hands. Other works by Rubens in the collection include the beguiling portrait of the artist's daughter Clara Serena and the Assumption of the Virgin, a monumental work of Rubens's maturity.”

It was a marvelous room. Amidst all of the massive works was something so different in feeling, the small portrait of his daughter—-portraits have such magic, a gift of painting. Ruben’s touch with the brush was remarkable in all of the works, with the painting of his daughter it took my breath away. The depiction of her forehead as it rounds to meet the hairline, her penetrating gaze—with two different eyes, and the tones throughout.

Teaching painting for many years, I have books to share with students. A Time-Life book, The World of Rubens, with the image, proved to me a picture is worth a thousand words. Galleries have power in themselves, the dimensions of a room and the way exhibits are designed. The bravura of the paintings of that gallery were offset by the quiet conversation one felt when considering father and daughter engaged in the moment of painting.

By Drew Burgess

Drew Burgess is a studio art and art history professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Sammlungen des Regierenden Fürsten von Liechtenstein, editors. Liechtenstein: The Princely Collections ; [... Held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 26, 1985 to May 1, 1986, Exhibition Liechtenstein: The Princely Collections]. Metropolitan Museum of Art [u.a.], 1985.

Portrait of Clara Serena Rubens, Peter Paul Rubens, oil on canvas, about 1616, 37.3 x 26.9 cm, Lichtenstein Garden Palace permanent presentation.

The Time-Life book, The World of Rubens.

Cite this page: Drew Burgess, “Portrait of Ruben’s daughter Clara Serena”, August 16, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/2024/8/16/portrait-of-rubens-daughter-clara-serena

Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio Tour

The Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio Tour is a treasure of artistic connection. The Kansas City residence is intact, a time capsule. The Missouri State Park Service offers this explanation, “Thomas Hart Benton's life is present in both his home and his paintings, and both are preserved at Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site. A trip to the home and studio of the renowned painter, sculptor, lecturer and writer offers a glimpse into how the talented Benton lived and worked. Benton converted half of the carriage house into his art studio, which remains as he left it. Visitors can still see coffee cans full of paintbrushes, numerous paints, and a stretched canvas waiting to be transformed into another of his masterpieces. Thomas Hart Benton died in his studio in 1975” (MSP).

The Benton site is on a tree lined suburban street in the Roanoke district of Kansas City. The home is nestled on a hillside.

The home and studio tour was preceded by a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum that included a viewing of Benton’s painting, Persephone. I was engrossed as soon as the tour started. In our party were the guide and three other individuals. A young man was an aspiring architect. I asked my traveling companion, my wife, to list five features of the tour she recalled.

He taught at the Kansas City Art Institute—-He used clay models to work out shadings for his paintings—-His wife Rita was a gracious entertainer, a former student, and one of the biggest champions of his art—-He became well-known after the World’s Fair and a subsequent Time magazine cover story—-His father was a prominent Missouri politician.

These are good points and capture much of the quality of Benton and his life.

He was successful. The arc of his journey included important mural projects. HERE is a link for a Metropolitan Museum of Art video about the acquisition of Benton’s work.

According to our tour guide, his wife Rita had a storage safe built in the basement to protect his art. She acted as a dealer showing and selling paintings in the home. Jackson Pollock, one of his students, became a friend to the family and sometimes watched the kids.

The tour started in the studio. It was fascinating to see how he worked, the simplicity of the space, articles he used, and hear explanations such as gray scale work-up paintings and clay models. He followed a process, his own, throughout his career.

When standing in the studio I was touched considering Mr. Benton working. Upstairs in the house the TV room was special as was the kitchen on the first floor.

By Drew Burgess

Drew Burgess is a studio art and art history professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.

Works cited: Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site, Accessed July, 19, 2024, https://mostateparks.com/park/thomas-hart-benton-home-and-studio-state-historic-site

Christopher Noey, Thomas Hart Benton’s mural “America Today” MET collects, YouTube, July 25, 2024, https://youtu.be/p1YLogEztHM?si=aoWjEItba6ExBxT2

Cite this page: Drew Burgess, “Thomas Hart Benton Home Tour and Studio Tour”, July 25, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/thomas-hart-benton’s-home-and-studio-tour/

Museum Guard at the Nelson-Atkins Museum by Duane Hanson

Recently I visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. It was a warm summer day, a Friday. The cool interior was a pleasure to experience. The museum is open until nine o’clock on Fridays. A notable feature of the museum were the attending personnel. When compiling notes I refrained from using the word guard, it sounded incorrect, the ‘guards’ were like ambassadors. I enjoyed conversing with multiple staff members. The museum has a pronounced sense of civic engagement.

Well, how funny it is for me to reflect on Duane Hanson’s Museum Guard. The sculpture surpirised me and in turn, Mr. Hanson’s piece reminded me of passionate college years studying artistic examples at museums. Art transports us.

The subject of Duane Hanson’s pieces, and it certainly is evident in Museum Guard, is the physical presence of an individual. This realization came home full on this visit as I was fooled by the figure. I was busy ‘seeing’ art and noticed the guard out of the corner of my eye. I felt the presence, and slight pressure of the institutional figure. It was not until I returned through the gallery that I realized it was a sculpture. “Wow”, I thought.

The encounter peaked my curiosity concerning the analysis of the piece. Formally it is in imitation of an actual guard, a super realistic representation. This analysis includes that I felt the presence of an actual guard. Moreover, of interet is the layer of social interaction of individuals, how interaction takes place and why. The figure evoked in me, as a museum attendee, a social code of behavior—how to behave. So, the figure is a construct of figurative presence and social modeling. One reads the figure and responds. This is the feauture of Duane Hanson’s work that is additionally significant, the way the sculptures capture the reality of characters within a social context, and, the viewer is cast as a member of a mini drama.

The Toledo Museum of Art has a sculpture from 1971 by Duane Hanson, The Executive. In a video discussion of the piece, Dr. Steven Zucker of Smarthistory states, “Here we are talking about this constellation of social events that we can easily construct around this single figure. The artist has been able to create a kind of archetype that allows us to understand the world in which he would have existed.” (3:13, Zucker). As viewers we are socially informed as we experience the sculptures.

One of the guards at the Nelson-Atkins spoke about visiting the museum as a youth in 1974, another guard spoke about working at a special wedding event, and another guard kindly gave us complimentary tickets to a special exhibit. Considering the sculpture of Duane Hanson has led to reflections on the dimension of a museum experience and the social role of museum personnel.

By Drew Burgess

Drew Burgess is a studio art and art history professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Duane Hanson (American, 1925 - 1996), 1975, Polyester, Fiberglas, oil, and vinyl, 69 × 21 × 13 inches, Gift of the Friends of Art, F76-40, © Estate of Duane Hanson / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Works cited: Dr. Halona Norton-Westbrook, Toledo Museum of Art and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Duane Hanson, Executive, originally titled, Another Day," in Smarthistory, April 7, 2019, accessed July 19, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/hanson-executive/.

Cite this page: Drew Burgess, “Museum Guard at the Nelson-Atkins Museum by Duane Hanson”, July 19, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/museum-guard-at-the-nelson-atkins-museum-by-duane-hanson

Ohio Magic by Ben Shahn at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum

When in New York City years back, a friend kidded me about noticing the amount of brick that was used in the structures of the city. Bricks, and bricks, and bricks. The Roman emperor Augustus stated, according to Suetonius, “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” Perhaps the quote illustrates a status of materials in visual culture.

Stacking materials is a primary way of building. American cities are a testament to stacking as are cities of the world.

Ben Shahn’s painting, Ohio Magic, screams brick in a quiet way. Brick is a material of the visual repertoire of the artist, Miners Wives of 1948 is also a good example of his technique of employing the stacked element as a visual device. In Ohio Magic the way Ben Shahn takes the time to draw the bricks including the layer that is on and within the surface is the magic of the painting. It is difficult to see online, there is a wall that is wedded to the picture plane. This layer speaks to a sense of the actual physicality of brick and also psychological walls.

The depicted buildings are recognizable in the context of American places. On the street is a church. Mr. Shahn’s unique artistic ability was the way he provided the regular with emotional movement. The perspective is confident and distorted at the same time. His works, in general, give a feeling of activity to static elements, a sense of life—with poetry. The dialogue of delicate lines and masses.

The bus is at odds with the street, seemingly going in a different direction. The perspective is distorted. The characters are a selection from a smorgasbord of townfolk, flags adorn the bus. No one is causing trouble and it is a humdrum moment.

Yet in a second floor window is a figure that signals there is a sensitivity at work, differentiated from the monotony of the brick, and the slow moving vehicle. The figure is presented within the frame of the window with their head resting at an angle, nurtured by the shoulder. The angle of the sitter’s head, the facial expression and gaze, are exquisitely rendered to portray a contrast to outside activity, the safety of a room, and a measure of lonely curiosity too. The linear presentation of the climbing plant reads as a suggestion of the inner life of the inhabitants. The natural element is echoed on the ground floor window, a floral display.

Viewing the painting my memory is sparked with a recognition of Shahn’s writing in his book, The Shape of Content. The depiction of the brick in this work is shape as well as content—it is the manifestation of his specific outlook and approach. I find it magnificent.

By Drew Burgess

Drew Burgess is a studio art and art history professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.

Ohio Magic, Ben Shahn, 1945, Tempera on paperboard mounted on hardboard, 26 x 39 in. M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.

Additional resources:
https://www.famsf.org/artworks/ohio-magic Curatorial notes at the museum, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, FAMSF, July 2024:

Cite this page as: Drew Burgess, “Ohio Magic by Ben Shahn at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum”, July 18, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/ohio-magic-by-ben-shahn

Recreation by Jerome Thompson at the de Young

Recreation, Jerome Thompson, 1857, oil on canvas, 40 1/2”x 56”, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum

Ideas of the quality of the lives of people pervaded art of the 19th century. For example, the aesthetics of the Impressionists, centered in Paris of the 1870s, included roots in the movement of Realism, thus they explored everyday life, modernity, and the subject of leisure. Leisure is specific to Impressionist study. Consider Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s the Boating Party or Bal du moulin de la Galette—-each painting is a rooted example of the idea. Monet and colleagues were not directly political artists. There are no guns in Impressionist works. Degas’ dancers interestingly are at work, labor was strongly a subject in general during the investigations of the period, yet Degas’ dancers are within the notion of ‘art’ as an activity differentiated and included in the realm of leisure. Art, though a significant labor, refrains from announcing it. Instead, there is the ease of a dancer, the necessity of the art being the focus, not the exercise.

For some artists of the 19th century the rejection of politics as subject matter offered the effects of color and light as the sun filled expanse they needed to explore—they exemplified modernity as a landing party of the now.

So, the time frame of Jerome Thompson’s painting, Recreation, is rich with discussion of working life and time off. The painting offers marvelous artistry for our admiration and to some degree defines attitudes of nature, rest, and peaceful contemplation.

Who is Jerome Thompson? I am purposely stalling, to stay here, and experience this one painting. As an art educator how glorious it is to not know, to let a work unravel secrets.

My first observation is the figure reclining on the right, my eye settled there. We see the vision of the character gazing into the activity of the group but not the adjacent figure who is a mystery, with the backside to us, the character’s attention is solitary. One’s eye might follow hers to the figure below and then to the distant couple walking. Is there romance in her thoughts? In the long red dress, with figurative containment, the character is set apart from the activity of the group. I find some melancholy as there is a feeling of separation and longing. The reclining figure below looks elsewhere.

The central activity involves three people. The player of the flute with two distinct listeners. The admirers’ expressions are representations of personality. Are they sisters? The inner most of the two has a twist to her mouth while the other gazes with soft eyes.

The couple on the left counter the couple on the right. In this case the man looks lovingly upon the woman while she is somewhat aloof. Behind them the picnic fire smolders. The basket is nicely rendered. In the foreground a bottle is kept cold in a spring.

The expansive landscape, trees, foliage, and receding atmospheric light support the scene as a day of reflection in the comforts of nature. The player of music completes the scene as a harbinger of sweet romance and the divine possibility of the whole.

Following this visit my companion and I left the museum to stroll in Golden Gate Park. The meaning of the painting impressed me as I saw and felt the lovely environment.

By Drew Burgess

Drew Burgess is a studio art and art history professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.

Cite this page as: Drew Burgess, “Recreation by Jerome Thompson at the de Young” July 14, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/recreation-jerome -thompson/

Additional resources:
https://www.famsf.org/artworks/recreation

Joos van Cleve’s Lucretia at the Legion of Honor →

I am standing alone in the gallery. The Legion of Honor of San Francisco is free on Saturday. Arriving early, my path led to Lucretia by Joos van Cleve. On the freeway I wondered why, knowing I would see it first. My thesis is that we seek works that match the intricacies of emotion, the emotion we need to resolve.

Examining the surface, it is an oil painting on panel. The artist completed the work in 1525. The subject is the Roman story of Lucretia who chose suicide rather than the dishonor of rape. The surface has the quality of oil painting we might expect, the luster of the surface, fine detail, color, and design. The frame provides a strong harbor.

Like all paintings that captivate us, it is the way the artist conceives and executes the work—-the way it is done. The colors are special, the blue and pink tones. The blue is understated as a blue, rich in tone yet pale. The balance with the pinks of the garment and the pinks of the headwear create a delicate harmony. The colors are fresh. Lucretia’s fur wrap lends a different feeling, the sensation of brown tones, animal senses, and comfort. One can feel the tactile closeness of the fur in proximity with her pearly skin.

Lucretia’s agonizing gaze, specific and unique, is poignant. The expression carries  distraught emotion. Joos van Cleve created a tremendous interpretation of despairing realization—the character makes a choice within the narrow confines of her circumstances. The artist presents Lucretia as a person of anxious sensitivity, her eyes looking up to half closed lids. The eyes seem lost in a crazed moment of the action and exhilaration of holding her honor—the whole way. I see fear and courage in her face.

As for the dagger, the thrust is set to begin, the first drop of blood has started to flow. The hands hold the dagger as though an unfamiliar instrument, tentatively poised.

Jewelry pieces adorning her frame act in unison as a complicated network of angles, curves and crossings. The elements are both fragile and hard, the metal is a counterpoint to the so, so, soft skin and breasts. The sheer interior garment is spread open exposing her incredible vulnerability. The simple breasts represent complete exposure, her physicality and social stature.

The relationship of the hands, the dagger, and the two breasts has compositional power, the way the line of the units interact. As a viewer one senses the hardness of the steel dagger in contact with flesh and bone. One feels the abdomen and the sternum. The painting is charged with anticipation of the split seconds of activity.

Joos van Cleve painted Lucretia with her head tilted and her eyes countering the direction. The eyes and head turn from the action of the midsection as though the protagonist prepares to perform the excrutiating act.

The composition is achieved with a simple methodology—it is just Lucretia. The background is black without an expression of room space. For me the deep toned background counteracts the intense figure as a suggestion of the doomed space she must enter, her honor dictates her fate.

The translucent veil floating in the air suggests attendant angels. The veil on either side of the upper space suggests wings and perhaps transcendence to heaven—-she is a model of virtue. Her mortal courage in the face of barbarism will be met by an approving god.

One of the most sweetly portrayed articles of the painting is the looping string that has become undone from the metal loops of the inner garment. It is painted with extreme care. The gold ends, like so many details of the painting, speak on their own as singular elements, they rest with perfection on her skin and on the fur (appears to be mink).

The nipples of her breasts are tenderly colored a rosy hue. The way Master van Cleve felt the internal and external qualities of her softness is a marvel. Her eyebrows arch, a light brown color, they suggest a rising of the forehead, both in surprise and resignation. Her lips are parted as though drawing in breath to support her courage.

As a viewer I am struck with the dizzying quality of the event. Returning to my thesis, the mix of beautiful painting and a need for resolution fulfills something for me. Artists lead us to places we did not know we knew, and yet we do. We are confronted with brutality, tenderness, gentle sensibilities and human behavior. The elements of the painting lend a visual response of time that is quick, unforgiving, and determined. The physical space of the painting is charged with the action of Lucretia, a creature of purpose, unable to be anything but all that she is, an heroic woman honoring truth, her family, and her self.

By Drew Burgess

Drew Burgess is a studio art and art history professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.

Cite this page as: Drew Burgess, “Joos Van Cleve’s Lucretia at the Legion of Honor” July 6, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/joos-van-cleves-lucretia-at-the-legion-of-honor

Additional resources: https://www.famsf.org/artworks/lucretia

Joos van Cleve, Flemish, ca. 1485-1540, Lucretia, ca. 1525, Oil on Panel, Gift of the M.H. deYoung Endowment Fund to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 54651

Joos van Cleve, Flemish, ca. 1485-1540, Lucretia, ca. 1525, Oil on Panel, Gift of the M.H. deYoung Endowment Fund to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 54651 —-DETAIL

Joos van Cleve, Flemish, ca. 1485-1540, Lucretia, ca. 1525, Oil on Panel, Gift of the M.H. deYoung Endowment Fund to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 54651 —-DETAIL